The Rice Queen Diaries

The Rice Queen Diaries

Daniel Gawthrop

In this relocating autobiography, Daniel Gawthrop writes concerning the politics and pleasures of being a self-identified “rice queen”: a homosexual guy who's drawn to Asians. Navigating during the city jungles of Western towns like Vancouver and London, in addition to the humid streets of Bangkok and Hanoi, Daniel explores the multicultural minefields of sexuality and tradition as he articulates the manners and contradictions of his desires.

The politics of race, and the unstated principles of homosexual Asian tradition in either Western and japanese settings, underscore Daniel’s own trip, during which he recollects his youngster years spent idolizing Bruce Lee and his fixation on an Asian schoolmate whose hazing turns into a sexual spectacle for him. As he enters maturity, his wants develop into appear as he explores the subcultures of lengthy Yang golf equipment (where homosexual Asians and “their admirers” can meet) prior to departing for Asia, the place his encounters develop into transactions, and he learns the tough approach that sexual hope has a human and emotional cost.

Evoking the topics of Edward Said’s Orientalism, The Rice Queen Diaries is as a lot a private assertion approximately tradition and otherness because it is set homosexual hope. Traversing 3 continents, those diaries are a private reckoning, a daring coming to phrases with the nuances of sexuality that has relevance for all of us.

For miles. as a result of its distant place - it takes approximately seven hours to get there from Vancouver - lengthy seashore isn't crowded with travelers and has therefore retained a lot of its ordinary attractiveness and rugged, unmolested biodiversity. i could not wait to determine the response of my Filipino-American partners the instant they observed it for the 1st time. Johnny and that i, status at the sundeck of our rented cottage, watched his pals dash to the seashore. steadily they slowed their speed and stopped approximately.

Attendance intended accepting the truth that (a) lengthy stretches of dialog could take place in languages except English (some of them, without doubt, targeting the few white males in attendance), and (b) the sensation i might have of being considered as a juicy piece of major rib was once no longer in contrast to that skilled by means of many an Asian guy stuck within the crosshairs of Rice Queen lust. towards the tip of the get together, i used to be sitting by myself at the front room ground, staring out at Canary Wharf, while a tender chinese language queen.

The least. In Bangkok, the consistent fussing via such a lot of attractive younger males used to be difficult to withstand - even if stimulated through the expectancy of money. At this level, the invention of whole neighbourhoods geared up round the intercourse exchange used to be too fascinating in its novelty, too pleasing in its promise, and too fascinating as cultural anthropology to permit for a lot teeth-gnashing concerning the politics of financial system. that may come later, as boredom, guilt, and saturation set in. after all, i used to be already conscious of a.

Appointment was once for ten o'clock the evening earlier than, and that i have been pressured to maintain suspending it whereas my journey into Bangkok from Phetchaburi stored getting not on time. After my final apologetic telephone name at approximately hour of darkness, Wit should have given up, long past out to a bar, and spent the evening with another person. no longer understanding the place else to head now that i used to be at his residence, i made a decision to attend for him via mendacity down on a bench within the car parking zone. earlier than passing out, i realized an individual observing me from the building's.

lengthy bangs of jetblack hair, the gracefulness of his outstretched correct leg and the way he saved his left leg propped up on the knee, his left hand putting off it, like he used to be sitting for a portrait painter. Later, in a small island village, one other halfnaked early life solid a spell on me: a tender rice pounder, doing his paintings within the again room of a corrugated tin shack that served as a rice cake manufacturing unit. Dressed purely in fisherman's trousers, his lengthy hair tied again in a ponytail, this excellent specimen of.